


Shackled

by Velvedere



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: And The Rest Of Us Cope With Teaser Footage From The Dark World, Fun With Shackles, In Which Thor Has Intense Feelings, M/M, Porn, Post-Avengers, prison fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-15
Updated: 2013-10-15
Packaged: 2017-12-29 13:07:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1005761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Velvedere/pseuds/Velvedere
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thor gets a shackled Loki situated in his cell once they're back in Asgard. Feels and porn ensue.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shackled

Thor did not push Loki when he released him. It was Loki who pulled away, tugging his arm back into himself like a petulant child insisting they could walk on their own.

Thor did not begrudge him the small freedom.

It would be the last he would have for a great while.

The cell was small compared to the chambers they were used to, but not so small Thor thought it unjustly cruel. It had already been furnished with a modest bed – again, in comparison to that of their own rooms – and even a table with a stack of books.

Their mother’s doing, no doubt.

Thor held himself grimly still as he surveyed the interior.

Even after all that had happened, he still thought of their parents as belonging to them both.

As he would continue to think of them, for Loki _was_ his brother.

Was, and always would be.

Loki turned his eyes over the same scene with unhidden disdain. He’d shown nothing but contempt and disregard since they had arrived, rolling his eyes at Heimdall’s greeting of them and standing defiantly through Odin’s condemnation and decree. Thor was certain he would have yawned for boredom had the gag over his mouth not prevented it.

Thor turned, and made a single gesture to the guards who stood outside the cell. Their attentive escort.

“Leave us.”

His voice felt rough. It was the first time he’d spoken since before leaving Earth with Loki in tow.

Then, it had been only two words.

“Come, Loki.”

Once the guards had gone, Thor turned to his brother. His hand touched the key hanging from his belt that would unlock the shackles.

Thor had not questioned the order when Odin gave him charge of Loki after his sentencing. Perhaps – Thor did not doubt – Odin knew he wished it. He would have accompanied his brother down to the cells regardless, if only to see him treated well and fairly by his handlers.

Perhaps for the chance to speak to him one last time.

The weight of the unsaid fell like a portcullis between them.

The cell itself was well lit, humming the faint sound of golden magic.

Everpresent light. Walls made of glass.

Loki would have no privacy here. There were no shadows in which he could hide.

Thor knew Loki had done more than enough to cost himself the privilege, but even so, he felt a swell of pity rise in his chest. He knew his brother, and Loki had ever treasured his personal time and space.

The sound of his hand on the key drew Loki’s attention. He turned his head, the rest of him somehow remaining still. Drawn and tall, poised in the ambient light. Flawlessly so.

Still a prince, even now.

He looked to the key. Then his eyes flickered to meet Thor’s with daring expectation.

Even gagged, Loki managed to say much.

 _Well?_ Thor could imagine too perfectly the upward turn of his voice. There would be a note of impatience, as though Loki had more important matters to attend to. _Are you going to stand there for eternity, or release me? These cuffs do chafe something dreadful, brother. It really is the least you could do._

So much from the arch of a delicate eyebrow. A glint of green eyes amidst the pale.

Thor felt his throat turn dry. He swallowed against it, and removed his hand.

“This is goodbye, then.”

The confirmation was not for Loki’s sake. Thor was not even certain why he said it. Perhaps it was only to stave off the inevitable. To force him at last to confront the notion that this was where they parted ways.

Again.

Thor closed his hand at his side.

“I would know what you would say, but I fear I already know it too well.”

There it was. Loki rolled his eyes away, already bored and dismissive of Thor’s childish sentiment.

He stepped closer to the table instead to see what books had been left him.

“The others whisper,” Thor went on. “They worry you would bewitch me, were you given the chance to speak.”

Loki ignored him. He reached out to turn one of the books toward him and opened its cover, leafing through the pages with the slow reverence he’d always reserved for ancient tomes. Though the binds on his wrists made it troublesome.

It felt unusual for Loki to be so silent.

And yet, not unusual at all, for who among the two of them was more inclined to sit and read a book in the shade of a tree while Thor and his friends shouted challenges to each other across a sparring field?

Thor had never thought himself skilled in the art of speech.

Now, he felt a dire need for it. A need to grasp this one chance before it was gone forever.

“This is not what I would have chosen.” Above all, he wanted his brother to know that. “I wanted none of this, Loki. Whatever I have done to drive you away...I am sorry, with the furthest reaches of my heart.”

He had spoken such words before, though he had not seen Loki’s face when he did so. It did not seem his brother had taken heed of them.

Thor saw him now, still turned away. Unconcerned.

“I would have us be a family again.”

The shackles were not only to bind Loki’s magic, though the runes inlaid upon the forged metal rendered him powerless. They also insured his compliance.

HE WHO WEILDS THE HAMMER COMMANDS THE LIGHTNING AND THE STORMS, the runes said.

Then, beneath that:

HE WHO WEILDS THE HAMMER COMMANDS THE BOUND WITHIN.

Thor had expected Loki to resist returning to Asgard at any cost. And he had, until the cost proved to be that of his own pride.

That cost for Loki was far too high.

“Come, Loki,” Thor had beckoned, as they stood in the sun together with his new comrades, the Avengers. Loki had not budged, bound securely by then, until a flex of power attached to the hammer at Thor’s belt just barely compelled him forward half a step.

Loki’s scowl even behind the muzzle had been murderous, but he relented.

So long as Thor wielded Mjolnir, he commanded the power within the shackles. Loki was not about to make a fool of himself by trying to resist, and losing.

Loki and his insufferable pride.

It did not sit well with Thor. He did not enjoy ordering his brother about like a common servant, but he had seen no other way short of picking him up and carrying him.

That would have not sat well with Loki, either.

Loki would still not look at him. He closed the book and reached for another instead.

“ _Loki,_ ” Thor all but begged.

He stepped in close, and reached for his hand.

Thor turned him by the shackles until they faced. He did so gently, expecting more token resistance on Loki’s part, if for no other reason than spite.

But there was none.

Loki lifted his eyes to meet him with that same weary expectation.

Thor abruptly forgot what else he had meant to say. This close, he could see the faint red lines on Loki’s skin where the muzzle had begun to imprint.

He had not spoken since before they’d left Earth, either.

Thor met his look. Detached regard. That faint upward tilt of Loki’s chin so he could look down his nose at Thor, even as they stood on level ground.

It sparked to life a flicker of anger.

“Do you not wish to restore what we once had?” Thor heard his words come, broken and desperate from the strain they carried. “Will you not even _try?_ ”

That Loki was angered and bitter for what had happened Thor could comprehend, but that Loki would stand by and do nothing, _nothing_ , when the chance lay before them now to possibly grasp happiness once again, to see things made right, fanned the spark of his temper into a flame.

Remembering those who had fought and died in the battle over Manhattan was pain enough. That did not stab as deeply as the knowledge that Loki held no remorse for what he had done. That he would change nothing of the events as they had unfolded, even given the chance.

His damnable _pride_.

Thor did not realize he gripped his brother’s shoulders until he heard leather squeal in protest under his fingers. He felt ready to shake him, as he had shaken him in the dark of the mountainside. Ready to _force_ sense into him, if that was what proved necessary.

“Do you realize what pain you have caused?” Not only to Earth, but to him. His family.

Loki realized. His look spoke all.

Even the muzzle could not fully hide his smirk.

Thor’s fury soared.

He wanted nothing more in that moment than for Loki to understand this pain.

“Kneel,” he said, rasping the sound between his teeth in an unwitting imitation of how Loki had said the exact same, as he battled one of Earth’s mightiest soldiers.

He knew not why he said it, only that he could think of nothing else.

A look of shock overtook Loki’s face.

Thor could feel the faint thrum of power. He could feel Loki resist. A faint tremble shuddered through his hands. A tension gripped his body.

The look in his eyes hardened, but he did not move.

Thor did not release him. Nor did he look away from his eyes as he spoke again.

“Kneel.”

Power flexed through the air, sparking like a discharge of magic. It made Thor think of the way energy crackled within Heimdall’s observatory when he activated the Bifrost.

Loki resisted, rising to the battle of wills. His glare cut as sharp as his daggers, and he shrank a step away.

Thor’s grip on the manacle chain kept him from going far.

When he managed to persist, Thor leaned in closer, whispering with fleeting intimacy, but no less command, against his ear.

_“Kneel.”_

Let Loki know the humiliation he would have inflicted upon others.

The power inherent in the shackles flashed bright. Thor nearly gasped, feeling a sudden heat hurtle through his blood not unlike the rush and thrill of battle.

Loki’s breath caught, too.

He maintained his resistance a moment longer. Then another.

Then it overtook him. He fell down to one knee, head bowed as he drew air hard through his nose.

Thor looked to him, not realizing he held his breath until he released it then, staggered by a tendril of unfurling warmth through his loins. Sudden and sharp.

Loki lifted his head to glare. Thor met his eyes, uncertain of what part of him betrayed itself in his look. Only that it drew Loki’s defiance to the surface again.

He held his breath to disguise how he panted. He drew himself up.

Thor knelt, making them equals once again. He cupped Loki’s face in his hands and would have given in to the urge to kiss him were he not gagged. It was a desire Thor did not understand, but struck him so strongly he did not – could not – question it.

“If I commanded you to love me again,” he whispered, drawing his thumb along the metallic line of the muzzle. “Would you?”

The saw the flinch in Loki’s eyes. The anger. The hate.

Thor also saw the pain, and the way Loki turned his gaze suddenly away. Down and to one side.

To hide.

Thor bent his head and kissed his hair, his eyes clenched shut tight against the burning threat of tears. He held his brother. Held him, as he had not been able to hold him on the Bifrost. As though he could make amends for what was, in the end, his own failure.

“Loki...”

He moved his hand, and felt Loki grip him in return as Thor reached for his thigh.

Perhaps Loki meant to stop him, though with the shackles in place his mobility proved limited. Perhaps he only meant to hold on. His fingers dug hard into the bare skin of Thor’s arm, leaving stripes of angry red marks as they clawed across firm muscle.

Thor kissed a pale stretched of Loki’s neck where his hair parted to reveal it.

If what he felt when he grazed his brother’s groin was true, then he was not the only one roused by the exchange.

Loki grunted, muffled around the gag, as Thor took him in hand.

At first he only touched him. Cupped him through the light cloth that formed his garments. He felt Loki clench, strain to shut him out...and then his legs spread. His grunt became a groan.

Rough, clumsy tugs of Thor’s suddenly overlarge fingers worked the material free.

Then there was nothing more between them.

Thor grasped him – softer, cooler than he would have thought – and suddenly thought of a thousand and one hot summer days in their youth when he and his brother had stolen away from their studies to find refuge in the cool water of the mountain lake.

 _Their_ lake.

Stripped of clothing, Thor had always been aware of Loki’s slightness compared to his own: a difference between them that had only increased with age.

He often wondered if Loki resented him for it.

If he had, he’d never said so. They’d smiled and splashed together in the shallows, dunking and wrestling as children would do, a splendor in their innocence.

Loki had always been beautiful in his own right. Firm. Fine. Like a god of air and fire.

Thor remembered how Loki’s skin held an unnatural glow in the filtered valley light. Some might call it pale, but it radiated. From above, but also below, reflected from the lake water even after the sun had disappeared behind the surrounding piney forest.

It was as though his light came from within.

Thor remembered thinking that was what magic must have looked like.

He’d known Loki’s beauty then, but he had not seen.

There were a great many things he had not seen.

Perhaps, if he had, none of this would have happened.

Thor stroked him gently in hand, hoping – yearning – for Loki to feel the tender regret in his touch. His desire not only for him but to make things right again. To do whatever was required to bring them together once more...

Loki’s nails dug deep into his arm. Enough to draw crescents of red blood. Thor bore the sting and held him, held him up, bent half over his lap as though weeping beyond condolence.

A shiver ran through Loki’s body. Thor felt it echo in his own.

He kept stroking.

Loki’s breath came hard through his nose. His back arched, hips pushing against him with wanton demand.

He kept his face turned away. Ashamed and still proud.

Thor imagined his eyes were still closed.

He bent his head, let his breath fall on Loki’s neck and over one ear as he whispered.

Pleaded.

“Love me...”

But there was no spark of power upon the air. The shackles could command one’s body, but not their will.

Even should it be possible, Thor would have known such love to be false.

He could not make his brother love him, so he loved Loki instead. Desperately. Painfully. And with all his heart.

His hand kept stroking.

Loki’s hands on his arm clenched. Unclenched. Kneading like a cat flexing its claws.

When he heard his brother’s whimpers – barely escaping the muzzle’s restraints – turn to a sound like pain, Thor closed his eyes. He touched his lips to the back of Loki’s neck and whispered his final command.

The same as his first.

“Come, Loki.”

All at once Loki’s breath caught. His body hitched. Every muscle strained and he held himself taut and quivering in Thor’s arms, a half-formed sound in his throat like a strangled cry.

Heat spilled in the palm of Thor’s hand.

Thor held himself still and let his brother cling to him.

He held him up. Held him strong.

Finally the tension left him, all at once, and Loki lay against him, panting still for much-needed breath.

Thor’s hands dug into the leather at his shoulders.

“I’m sorry, brother,” he sobbed against the back of his neck, sudden and fierce. The tide of restrained tears within him broke free and rained into his beard. “I am so sorry...”

Loki did not answer. Not in words.

But his hands came to rest over Thor’s, long and slender in comparison.

He squeezed. Gently.

It may have been forgiveness.

Thor set him down gently upon the floor, wary of the ache of unlocking muscles. He undid the shackles from Loki’s wrists. The chain slid away from him with a metallic scrape against the floor, followed by the muzzle.

Loki licked his lips as he was at last free of it.

Thor stood, taking the items with him in a solemn grip. Loki did not rise, but lay on the floor, posed to best show his dishevelment. Clothing wrinkled and displaced.

Dark hair curled around his cheeks to frame their sharpness, and his eyes burned from their half lids.

His hand had drifted down between his thighs, taunting.

 _Will you not finish the job, brother?_ said his look.

Thor half expected him to speak as much, but Loki said nothing. Just as Thor said nothing as he cast his gaze down to him, hurt and heartbroken and throat tight in the wake of his tears.

He spoke only once before he turned to leave, quiet and hoarse.

“I’ll have a wash basin brought.”

In the time it took Thor to cross the cell and close the entryway behind him, sealing it with its lock, there passed a hundred instances Loki could have made an escape attempt. Could have used his magic or even a simple trick to slip out and leave Thor trapped within to laugh at him in his stead.

But he did nothing.

He lay on the floor, a pleased and satisfied smile curling his lips, head pillowed on one hand as he let his gaze settle on the ceiling.

Fingers drummed on his stomach. Idle. As though in thought.

Thor walked away, and that was the end of it. He would never speak to his brother again.

So he thought.


End file.
